ARTSblog

Each September, thousands of parents, teachers, artists, and arts education advocates visit the Americans for the Arts site and PSA site, taking the start of the school year as an opportunity to ask questions about their children’s arts education. To address the questions and concerns of these arts education stakeholders, Americans for the Arts hosted an Arts Education Salon on ARTSblog from September 21 – 25, 2009. Twenty-four guest bloggers posted more than 70 blog entries during that week on one specific topic: what steps can people or organizations take to ensure the children of their community have access to a great arts education?

The Salon not only provided crucial information to our readers and ARTSblog visitors, but also offered a forum for discussion on the hot topics the bloggers addressed in their posts. The Arts Education topics which were touched upon were diverse, from arts activities at home and ways for parents to become arts smart to the value of arts education and the need for advocacy. Be sure to continue reading the posts at your leisure and comment as you like. They can all be found using the Salon Sept 09 blog tag.

What information from the Arts Education Salon on ARTSblog helped you?

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My previous entries were intended to broaden the discussion of the arts education constituency beyond the K-12 age group and learning environment.  Arts learning and pre-professional development extend to university students many of whom are not traditional arts majors but who may find themselves pursuing careers in arts management, and for some arts education management.   With this entry, I reiterate that learning and education in and through the arts doesn’t begin in Kindergarten.  Young children often have very limited access to quality arts education because of the lack of arts specialists in early childhood classes, schools and centers.  Furthermore, meaningful developmentally appropriate arts learning experiences with teaching artists and within cultural institutions may be restricted by lack of funding, resources and suitable content.

Are we leaving a substantial part of our population out of arts education?  Each infant, toddler, preschooler comes with an adult attached—a parent, caregiver or teacher.  Therefore, each young child genuinely touched by the arts means an adult sees and understands the impact of the arts on a very personal level.  Not only is this the beginning of arts education, this may be the beginning of advocacy for a parent or other significant adult—the zealotry that Eric Booth speaks of. Read the rest of this entry »

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Each year, Wolf Trap hosts over 40 grad and undergrad students as Interns working side-by-side with programming, administrative and artistic staff.  The program has consistently been included in “America’s 100 Best Internships—The Princeton Review”; in 2009, we received over 800 applications for 31 summer positions.   These applicants represent  a myriad of academic programs business, communications, theatre, government, design, IT, education majors and all are looking for a career; it is our job to encourage them to find themselves and their skills in the business of the arts.

Recruitment efforts include outreach to African American and Latino/Hispanic students for participation in our diversity programs.  Wolf Trap’s Internship Program is directed by the Education Department—and all know that it is different from a management or HR program.  Interns even see the difference: “The greatest strength of the Internship Program is that it is housed in the Education department and is thus structured to be a learning experience.  The program is nestled within a very positive and nurturing environment.”  Read the rest of this entry »

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After joining my Cause–Keep the Arts in Public Schools–I intentionally made my first contribution as big as I possibly could. It was a huge stretch for me. But I knew I wanted to and I knew why.

First, to have an impact on children.
Second, I wanted to inspire people.
Third, I wanted to meet people.

The people I initially met were members of the Cause. Some were grateful, some were moved to action, others presumptuous. I remember notes of people being inspired and making commitments to make donations of their own. And then there were the kinds of notes that were less inspired. One made me laugh. The writer said, “Well, if I had an extra $500 sitting around…” and I remember thinking to myself, there was nothing extra about any of those $500. Each of those dollars had several intended results. Read the rest of this entry »

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:56 — 4.5MB)

John Abodeely, Manager of Arts Education at Americans for the Arts, discusses the success of the Arts Education Salon on ARTSblog. The Salon, which concludes today, features 60+ posts by a diverse gathering of more than 20 arts education stakeholders–from parents and teachers to teaching artists and government officials.

Click the Salon Sept 09 blog tag to see all the blogs from this online event. It’s never too late to comment on something that interests you.

And as we mentioned in this audio podcast, answer our question of the day, with your comment below:

What person in your life– teacher, family member or otherwise–sparked your interest in the arts?

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I just got a press release from the College Summit. They announced “an innovative collaboration among the CEOs of PepsiCo, Google, DeLoitte LLP, the Dallas Mavericks, and the President of Princeton University …. To include “College Proficiency Reporting” as one of the measures states report on to demonstrate their progress in “improving both teaching and learning through higher standards and rigorous assessments.”

Not specifically an arts education finding. As a matter of fact, I somehow doubt that the CEOs in question spent much time debating arts education standards and assessments. But they are asking the administration to make specific assessments that they support to be a condition for receiving specific federal education funding. These individuals mean business, and treat education as a business. Read the rest of this entry »

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Often when we, as a field, speak about Arts Education programs and advocacy, we confine or limit our participants to students and adults within the K-12 school environment.  Often, we may extend our base to include the same age group in out-of-school and  after-school /community-based settings.  Other learners, including adults, may be implied; but often, we fall short of truly defining whom we serve by narrowing our constituent-base as if arts learning begins in Kindergarten and ends at high school graduation.  Perhaps we believe we can best focus our efforts and limited resources on students, teachers and parents within the K-12 environment.  If we do so, we miss the big compelling picture and the larger message.

Like other valued colleagues participating in this blog, I too have been in this field for a long time and have seen it develop from different perspectives.  In 1973, my career began as a high school theatre arts teacher within a large public school system.  I learned first-hand the demands on arts specialists struggling to develop and maintain programs—the enrollment in theatre classes was never a problem; the budget cuts drove me to work from outside the system.  Read the rest of this entry »

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In 2006, I was hired to conduct an assessment of the arts education program at the City of San José’s Office of Cultural Affairs. One of the research tasks was to create context for the OCA’s programs by putting them within a time line of influencing factors. It read like a history of arts education and politics from the 1970’s to the turn of the 21st century. It also became the most time consuming part of writing the report and it was the one part of the report I thought most people would wonder why I included it.

When I presented the full report to the Arts Commissioners, I got the most positive feedback on that one section because it helped them understand why the OCA made the arts education programming decisions it did over the previous three decades. See if you can follow the historical trends in your own community’s programs.

1.    The NEA-funded artists residencies in the 70’s and 80’s and their influence on state arts agency artist in the classroom programs;
2.    The after school programs for youth at risk that the NEA started in the 90’s;
3.    The move towards professional development and standards-based programs and curricula in the late 90’s and early 2000’s; and
4.    The movement to develop coordinated partnerships between arts organizations, school districts, teaching artists and local arts agencies that came about and have been highly researched in the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »

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As I have read through the wonderful blog posts this week I have noticed several trends.  One being that we, as art educators, are working hard to understand what exactly is an arts education and what we think our students should be getting out of it.  I have read the many wonderful answers that discuss the advantages of creative thinking, self expression, and problem solving.  And I totally agree that these are the transferable skills that all students need to be honing during their arts education.  However, I think that art is at a basic level much more vital than that.  The arts are absolutely essential to us as a human race.

What is the first thing covered in Art History 101; do you remember the first picture in your old Gardner’s textbook?  Thats right. Cave paintings and then later hieroglyphics.  These communication techniques were vital to the survival of these peoples.

I think it is important to remember that Art happened for a reason, it didn’t just happen. Historically visual arts have been used to produce symbols that provide meaning and to learn how to interpret the symbols and pictures to understand concepts.  Sounds pretty similar to some of the enduring understandings of my arts education.  But historically learning how to interpret an artists intent wasn’t just to gain perspective on a time period or certain emotion the artist was feeling; learning how to interpret the symbols meant the difference between knowing what an easy hunting target was or knowing what a ferocious man eating saber tooth tiger looked like; a pretty important distinction I would think.  Knowing how to look at the visual symbols, pick out the essential parts and identify the object in real life was of the utmost importance back then. Read the rest of this entry »

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Every Saturday morning, for the last several years, parents and their children gather around an art table at Sitar Arts Center in Washington, DC, poring over the images that they will cut and paste into beautiful collages while they enjoy quiet and meaningful time together.

Tim has taught the collage class since its inception, followed by a color-mixing class that produces artwork of breathtaking quality. He is an exceptional teacher and artist and he chooses to volunteer his time each week to share his gifts with families in our community.

Whenever I thank Tim, his gracious response is usually that his time at Sitar is the “best hour of his week.” I know that is because he derives great joy from working with our wonderful kids.

More than one hundred visual and performing artists volunteer their time each week at Sitar, teaching individual instrumental lessons and classes in music, dance, drama, digital arts, creative writing and visual arts. Together with the partnering arts organizations that I wrote about yesterday, these dedicated individuals make it possible for us to provide a total of 183 weekly classes and private lessons to 450 young people this semester. Read the rest of this entry »

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21st Century Learning! 21st Century Skills! Business leaders, educators, and parents are calling for major change in our current education system. The current model – reading, writing, and arithmetic – is the one that is drilled, tested, and evaluated. But this curriculum doesn’t account for creativity or critical thinking – skills that many acknowledge will be crucial to success in the new economy.

We’re used to advocating for the arts when the money gets cut. But, let’s break out of this silo. 21st century skills aren’t exclusively arts-based. And the arts aren’t the only neglected subject in post-No Child Left Behind schools. Science. The humanities. We should be pooling our collective voices to push for systemic change in schools. In Massachusetts, legislators are working on a Creative Challenge Index. Schools in Massachusetts will be reviewed and judged on how well they are teaching their students creativity and innovation through science, the arts and humanities. Other states are talking about similar initiatives.  These efforts mark a sea change in arts education advocacy. Read the rest of this entry »

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It has been a really interesting week reading so many thought provoking and informative blogs on what our colleagues are happening in arts education. I have noticed that the majority of the postings have revolved around in school arts education programs.  For my final blog I would like to concentrate on the importance of after-school and out-of-school time spent on arts education.

I remember when the Boys and Girls Club opened up right next to my elementary school.  I stood in line with my best friend for over an hour to get our ID cards with string lanyards.  Having this new facility next to our elementary school, one of five in our small town, immediately made us cool.

That ID card opened this enormous amount of opportunity in the arts for kids in our town, opportunities that we were not receiving in school.  I enrolled in dance, art and theatre classes that were being taught by high school students who had participated in summer arts program offered by the city before the Boys and Girls Club had opened.  Engaging in afterschool and out of school arts opportunities not only broadened my participation in the arts but also other community members, by engaging and supporting these arts activities. Read the rest of this entry »

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“We are not robots,” declared Susan Siman, whom I described in Part I of this piece as the guest conductor and teacher visiting Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) from Venezuela’s ground-breaking network of youth orchestras, known as El Sistema.

She continued: “Put your heart into it more.  Where is the passion?  Where is the heart?  Make me cry! Very good, violins.  Much better.  But it could be even better.  I know you would know the part if I asked you to play one-by-one. The hard thing is to play together.  Make Los Angeles tremble.  Eat a light breakfast the day of the Hollywood Bowl concert.  If you have a heavy breakfast you could get nervous and [gestures throwing up].  Don’t look at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the front row.  Look at the conductor.  Have your part learned by memory.  Enjoy every moment.”

Senora Siman’s jovial fire, her demand for excellence, artistry and pride, her humor and pragmatic advice all exhibit themselves in her erstwhile student, Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Designate Gustavo Dudamel, whom I first saw at work with Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra in the 2008 German documentary, “The Promise of Music.” Read the rest of this entry »

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My first blog entry was focused on suggesting that schools and communities need to develop parent leadership in schools to best capitalize on leveraging intent and desired action with regard to parent engagement, whatever that may be.  So if it’s about supporting arts education programming within the school, laying that foundation of leadership, or identifying it prior to exploring or pushing new ideas, is a critical step.

Within the realm of what parents should “know” about the arts and arts education, the field has been working hard to build research that codifies and articulates what many have long known: that the arts are a powerful vehicle for reaching children, and the benefits can be wide in scope and significant in depth.

What I would point out to parents right now is some research that a colleague of mine working to support parent engagement in Nebraska has shared which I find especially compelling.  It’s a meta-analysis by established researcher Robert Marzano that shows that school level and teacher level factors account for approximately 20 percent of the variance in student achievement.  No one would dismiss the critical importance of that 20 percent, needless to say, and we have much work to do as a nation to address the inadequacies of the system.  However, the other 80 percent, which is comprised of student characteristics, including home and community environment, learned intelligence/background knowledge and motivation, is no a small factor.   Read the rest of this entry »

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I was at a post Rosh Hashonah service luncheon on Saturday with neighbors and friends. At one point our hostess shared that she had gone to elementary school with one of the other guests and surprised us by singing a song about Benjamin Franklin that had been part of a play she performed in at that elementary school. Even more surprising was that her classmate joined in singing from the other side of the room.

This was a song they had learned over forty years ago!

One of my own favorite memories is of singing O’ Shenendoah in my 6th grade chorus. It was just before my voice changed and the last time anyone has allowed me to sing in public. Read the rest of this entry »

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